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A post shared by The Water Brothers (@thewaterbrothers) on Jul 4, 2016 at 8:59am PDT

What are the problems, and where are the solutions, to help us better protect our most precious resource?

With microbeads now being considered a toxic substance in Canada we thought we’d share this photo of us hunting for plastic in the middle of what’s been dubbed “The Great Pacific Garbage Patch,” a massive collection of plastic waste congregated together by swirling ocean currents known as gyres.

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A post shared by The Water Brothers (@thewaterbrothers) on Mar 17, 2017 at 8:24am PDT

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This is Alex in Palau holding shark fins confiscated from an illegal foreign fishing boat.

These fins are from just one shark, but more than 100 million sharks are caught each year, many of them taken from countries like Palau that have no effective means to prevent these destructive fishing practices from taking place.

The good news is that there are new technologies beginning to be used to spot, track, and capture illegal fishermen.

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A post shared by The Water Brothers (@thewaterbrothers) on Mar 22, 2019 at 8:31am PDT

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This photo was taken by us in the Toronto harbour last summer and shows the tremendous amount of plastic waste filling up in our Great Lakes.

Unfortunately, this scene is an all too common sight along every coastline in the world nowadays, and in order to change this situation it is going to take significant collective action. Not just by participating in things like beach cleanups or by recycling more, but by outright refusing single-use plastic waste as much as possible and by demanding that businesses and politicians eliminate these types of wasteful plastics from being created in the first place.

This is a fight about banning or redesigning certain polluting products altogether and by starting a revolution against our throwaway culture. This is a fight about the health of our entire environment and every living thing, including your own health.

If you live in the Great Lakes region your body is 70 percent Great Lakes water, the same water in this picture. But of course there are a lot more challenges facing our water than plastic pollution. Which is why we also challenge you to do things like change your diet and eat less meat, and when you eat seafood, to only support sustainable fisheries that are traceable and local if possible.

Support environmental organizations and vote for politicians that take these issues seriously, hold the corporate polluters financially responsible and transition us away from fossil fuels. Talk about these issues with your friends and family and get outside and enjoy being around nature and water whenever you can!

There is a lot be worried about these days, but even more to be hopeful for.

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If you live in Canada, you can watch “The Water Brothers” series free at their website.

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